How do you survive midterms?

I am in my last semester of my undergraduate career (YAY!) and have hit midterms. I am feeling extremly stressed and overwhelmed – I’m not behind in any of my classes but I feel like I am just getting closer and closer to that.

Does anyone have any tricks/tips for surviving (and thriving) school stress?

DiamondsandViolets: Plan your time well over the next few weeks or until midterms are over. Figure out which midterms will be the most difficult and begin studying earlier for those. I used to (and tell my students now) study in chunks of time. Review for this class for 20ish minutes, complete another task, then review for a different class. Then I would do it all over again until I was sure I was prepared and knew the information. Another tip…the night before each midterm, review on final time (quickly), get a good night’s sleep, and skip reviewing right before the midterm (some people can handle this, others can’t) as it can just stress you out right before the exam, which you don’t need. Good luck!

Also, keep it mind what PP said- most of us have been there and we’ve made it through. This semester will not last forever.

My best tip is find a series on Netflix and treat yourself to one episode a night after studying. It helps me de stress after hours of books and is like a little treat for my hard work. The Tutors got me through the beginning of this semester. Last semester it was Mr.Selfridge and The Paradise.

ILikeYourGenes: Lighten up. It was meant to be funny. I used to have students who were worried about passing their licensing exam. I would tell them to look around . All of the people they were working with passed. Even the ones who aqppeared less than the brightest bulb on the chandelier.

DiamondsandViolets: Make sure you get outside even if it’s just for a brisk walk. Exercise is very good for relieving stress.

julies1949: I’m glad you posted that, as I myself find that strategy very useful. Whenever I’m feeling anxious about getting through an assessment or a clinical rotation I look at the students in the year ahead of me and think “they all made it through, so why can’t I?”. It’s a calming thought.

I usually would buy my “study food.” For me it was pizza rolls, potato chips, egg nog (in fall semester) and ranch dip, but healthy food is probably a better idea. 😉 I would only eat that food during midterms or finals, so for me it was like a signal to my brain that it was go time. Plus it was a fun tradition and a reward for my efforts.

i was also a flash card maker so I kept every single flash card throughout the semester for each small test, and then study the whole pile at midterms and finals. It was a great way for me to study because I had written them myself and already done well with them on the small tests. Plus it saves you the time of making a study guide since you know it’s already material you had needed.

The absolute key for me though, was I would limit myself to one hour of studying, and a 15 min break. I would NEVER stay up too late studying. you aren’t going to retain that info if you’re exhausted, and you won’t do well on the test with the information you DO know if you don’t sleep. I would do better with six hours of studying and sleeping all night than my friends who studIed 12 hours and got three hours of sleep every. single. time. Cramming won’t do you any good. Just work on REaLLY knowing and understanding in depth as much as you can, and relax about not knowing the rest. You can only remember so much, at least make sure that what you have learned is complete and in depth. I did pretty well in college doing this.

Sleep and take breaks! You are no good to yourself if you keep on trying to study while tired or overwhelmed. I was planning my wedding while in clinicals and I just remember I would reward myself with 5 mins of ‘junk internet time’ for every half hour I studied. I set a timer and really stuck to it. It helped break up the flood of information that I was studying.

Make a schedule for yourself and study for one class for a few hours, then switch. Or write a paper for that long and switch, whatever. Take breaks. I do not recommend Netflix since it can be a black hole! Go outside. Find study buddies, even if they’re not studying the same thing. Studying for midterms when I was in college was actually kind of fun…we’d all get together in the computer lab (ah, the good old days) and share food and work and talk about what we were doing. We also made “Done is Good” lists and checked things off, which always feels nice.

DiamondsandViolets: Group study sessions are a great way to both study and make sure you’re on task. I prefer to do any homework or studying or even grading with other people who are working. That way, I’m not tempted to ‘take a break’ for a couple hours at a time, and if they’re in the same class, two heads are way better than one on a difficult problem/topic. I usually found myself struggling with accountability, so having a person by me who is working diligently usually keeps me pretty well on task.

I also recommend wine (to a point). A glass of hard apple cider is one of the best ways to grade monotonous lab reports. 😉 But in seriousness, sometimes a study session is helped by some sort of food, drink etc – make it a relaxing atmosphere to cut down on stress when you’re working.

I also second PP’s mention of taking a walk outdoors (or otherwise be active) and keeping a solid sleep schedule. Enforce a schedule too!

DiamondsandViolets: My DH just went back to school for Aerospace Engineering, and believe me if he can make it through his workload you can get through midterms! School was never his thing….

My biggest advice is to just breathe and know that you absolutely will make it through. You just need to focus and keep on trucking along. Don’t think about what you have to do or how much it is, just keep doing it. I also think studying smart makes a huge difference. Don’t just read through things, challenge yourself. Do problems in your text book even if they aren’t assigned. Quiz yourself on the reading, and go back and forth with keep terms checking every so often that you remembered the terms from 5 or 10 pages ago. That’s what helped me to study efficiently. Good luck, I’m sure you’ll get through it just fine!